Betsy Karasik: Student-Teacher Sex Should Not Be A Crime

Thousands took to the comment section of a recent op-ed piece by Karasik in the Washington Post to voice their anger regarding Karasik’s opinion on student-teacher sexual relations.

Karasik wrote her piece in response to the extremely lenient prison sentencing of Montana teacher Stacey Rambold. Rambold received only 30-days in prison for the repeated rape of then 14-year-old Cherice Moralez. Moralez committed suicide recently at the age of 16. Her family claims her history as a sexual abuse victim played a large role in her suicide.

While most were shocked at how little time Rambold was sentenced to, Karasik says she was “troubled for the opposite reason.”

“I don't believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape,” Karasik said. “And I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized.”

Why, in Karasik’s opinion, should student-teacher sex be decriminalized? Because everyone used to do it, and, well, no one was that messed up by the whole experience.

“When I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, the sexual boundaries between teachers and students were much fuzzier. Throughout high school, college and law school, I knew students who had sexual relations with teachers. To the best of my knowledge, these situations were all consensual in every honest meaning of the word, even if society would like to embrace the fantasy that a high school student can’t consent to sex. Although some feelings probably got bruised, no one I knew was horribly damaged and certainly no one died.”

Well then. I guess we should stop taking the whole teacher-student sex issue so seriously. After all, if none of Karasik’s friends told her about damage they suffered through from having sex with a teacher it must not be that bad. Never mind the thousands of sexual abuse victims saying otherwise.

Thankfully I’m not the only one upset by Karasik’s piece. Twitchy put together a list of hundreds of tweets shaming Karasik and the Post for publishing the op-ed.